powerlines in our bloodlines
by SkywardShadow
Summary: The first time he sees Sarada's eyes change, Sasuke knows he should feel pride. Instead he feels a twinge of fear. (Gen, post-finale)


**A/N:** Sometimes I work on Western AU followups for months...sometimes I write canonverse onehots in a day. /shrug

Obviously y'all can interpret my stuff however you like but I feel obliged to mention that this was not intended as romantic SasuSaku. Like, at all. Also please note that I don't follow Boruto; all of this is only what I got out of the final chapter of Naruto. Hope you enjoy!

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 _powerlines in our bloodlines_

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The first time he sees Sarada's eyes change, Sasuke knows he should feel pride. Satisfaction, even: here is proof that the lauded Uchiha bloodline did not die with the rest of his family, and will not die with him. As his daughter looks up at him, panting, black eyes bled over with jewel-bright red, Sasuke knows he should be proud.

Instead what he feels is a twinge of fear.

Sasuke doesn't fear much these days. Relations between the villages have never been as peaceful as they are now—genuinely peaceful, not the façade of friendliness that so often preludes war and destruction. With peace comes as much certainty as he will ever have that his family and friends are safe. And as for himself…well, Sasuke hasn't been overly concerned for his own life in a long time.

But this unnerves him. It's a harsher reminder than he'd anticipated, red spreading over the black; it brings the past rushing back so fast that he almost feels dizzy with it. It reminds him with stark clarity of the price those eyes have always demanded that their owners pay:

 _Itachi blind and agonized and coughing up blood; his cousin Shisui drowned and blackened and bloated; Madara growing ancient and cold and Obito going mad and he, Sasuke, burning himself out for revenge, for retribution and still more blood—_

The Uchiha legacy has demanded blood from its very beginnings, and it had nearly destroyed itself before Sarada was born. Before she came into her _kekkai genkai_. Before now.

Their most powerful technique demands the death of the person they love the most. Years too late, Sasuke wonders if that alone should have made him pause.

Sarada, concluding from long silence that he isn't going to say anything about her newly learned skill—because that's all it is to her, he realizes, just one more tool in a shinobi's arsenal—is turning away from him, busying herself with the strap lacing a kunai tight to her thigh.

Sasuke is quiet, wondering whether having a child with his bloodline will turn out to be the worst kind of selfishness after all.

.

Of course, he muses later, there's no danger of Sarada mistakenly trying to uphold her father's family legacy if she hates him.

"She doesn't _hate_ you," Sakura says, rolling her eyes. "You're still so dramatic sometimes."

They're sitting at her kitchen table cutting bandages, because Sakura is apparently incapable of leaving her work at work and Sasuke…doesn't have any room to complain because Sakura is the one letting him express his concerns. (An annoying voice in his head that sounds like Naruto mutters that the more appropriate term would probably be 'listening to him bitch'. Sasuke ignores it.)

"She won't use my name," he points out, managing to sound nonchalant. "That sends a pretty strong statement."

Sakura puts down her latest perfectly regulation-length bandage and takes a long sip of her tea, which has to be cold by now. She's stalling.

"You know," she says after a second, with the kind of care Sasuke knows is usually reserved for her patients, "she might be more willing to use your name if you were around more."

Blunt. And not untrue, but...

"We've had this conversation," Sasuke says, looking down at his own efforts. The cloth somehow got tangled up while he was talking and is now an impossible knot.

"I know," Sakura replies, sounding tired. She doesn't get angry as often as she used to, and when she does it's not nearly as explosive, maturity having taught her to wield her literally earthshattering fury in small but effective doses.

Rather like her disappointment. There's something uncannily familiar to it now.

"Sarada's learning to do that," Sasuke observes.

"Learning what?"

"How to use as few words as possible to communicate that someone is being an idiot," he says, dry. Sakura smirks.

"She's a Haruno too, you know."

"I know. She's been telling the whole village that at the top of her lungs."

"Sarada's never had any problem telling people exactly where she stands." The smirk turns into something a little warmer. "That one she got from both of us."

They go back to working in companionable silence. This is one of the things Sasuke has learned to appreciate about Sakura; he'd never have a moment's peace if he tried talking about this with Naruto. Their exalted Hokage would be too busy beating Sasuke over the head with whatever he thought the Right thing to do was.

As it is, Sasuke lets his hands move mindlessly over the fabric and thinks. Forces himself to look the problem right in the eye.

(He lived in denial for a long time. It didn't do him any favors.)

His conclusion is that it all comes back to contamination. The Uchiha family proclivity for chaos—madness, even. So few of them have been able to keep their mental balance on such precarious ground (Sasuke loves his brother, will always, always love his brother, but he can't pretend it doesn't take some taint of _not-rightness_ to be able to murder your own family at the age of thirteen). And Sasuke knows he's not exempt from this: he spent most of his life dancing on that razor's edge and occasionally tipping over, dragged back only through the efforts of people who continued to believe he was better than he was.

There was a time when he would have burned Konoha to the ground, collateral damage be damned. When he became what he loathed in the Elders and didn't bat an eye at the irony; he's not sure he even realized there was irony to be seen.

How much of that obsessive, all-consuming rage was the product of circumstance, and how much would have manifested itself anyway somewhere down the line?

And how much better are Sarada's chances (of not defecting, not becoming the instrument of a massacre, not ending up with a god complex or a martyr complex or the kind of tunnel vision that renders her blind to the people who actually love her) if she's only half an Uchiha? How much better do they get if Sasuke, last scion of the clan as it was, stays away so that he can't fuck her up like he's nearly done to every other good thing in his life?

So it's primarily out of fear, his absence. He knows that. He imagines Sakura does too, even if he hasn't outright said as much. Otherwise she would probably have broken his jaw or something by now and screw maturity.

Maybe he's a coward, and maybe that's still not a particularly good excuse. Does it matter, if it works?

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The problem is that it's _not_ working. And it's obvious whenever he looks at her.

When she was younger Sarada used to look at him with confusion, then eventually with mistrust and wariness. Now he's starting to see real bitterness there: it's no longer that she doesn't know who he is, or that she doesn't understand why he's never around even though they share a family name. Now she understands too well. Well enough to find him wanting.

He sees different glimpses too, of course, when she's focused on other things or other people. Sasuke sees her proud and wary, watchful and sharp and, somewhere underneath it all, borderline desperate for attention.

 _For love_ , that annoying part of his mind corrects. Sasuke bats the thought away like it might bite him.

 _How do you break a cycle?_

Even if Sasuke wanted to there's no denying her. She is so obviously his blood. She _is_ him, in more ways than he's comfortable admitting.

And she's not the only one. He sees Naruto shining through Bolt so clearly sometimes it gives him whiplash, the past sneaking up on him again: a confident, obnoxiously loudmouthed boy who draws people to him without even realizing he's doing it. A boy who feels neglected enough that he thinks causing problems is not only the easiest but the only way to get someone to look at him. Sasuke sees Bolt's frustration giving way to resentment, and then he looks as his own daughter with her eyes beginning to harden, and the back of his neck prickles.

Around and around they go.

It could be that he's thinking too hard about this. Maybe Sarada will never have a reason to go rogue, to become so twisted that she would be willing to destroy everything she once loved for the sake of revenge. Maybe she'll never tip over that edge.

But even if she doesn't, Sasuke finds himself thinking, is that really good enough? Aren't they supposed to owe it to their children to do _better_?

.

The first time Sasuke realizes he would die for his daughter, it's a strange feeling. Certainly a newer sensation than that of the shuriken sinking into his back. After that he doesn't feel anything for a while.

When he wakes up, it's with the sound of Sarada's scream still echoing in his ears and the view of a hospital ceiling. Sakura is leaning over him with an exasperated look on her face.

"That fourth one barely missed your spine," she tells him. "Just because you're mostly behind the scenes now doesn't mean you should get lazy."

He hears the sentiment underneath, which is _thank you for saving our daughter_.

And then she rips a needle out of his arm with more force than she probably needed to. Controlled anger. Still, Sasuke observes with a wince, very effective.

After she's gone to look after her other patients, Sasuke leans back and thinks about how bizarre it feels to be in this situation. He can't remember the last time he was willing to die to protect someone else instead of dying for revenge, spite, a memory or a ghost…

Except that's not completely true, because Sasuke still remembers the feeling of senbon needles sliding under his skin and someone else's arms breaking his fall and a too-loud voice shouting his name. It was the same sensation then: surprise, but also recognition that the person he was protecting represented something bigger than Sasuke himself. Something better.

Small stars die to feed more brilliant ones; he thinks he read that once even if he can't remember where, and some part of Sasuke will always believe he was born to be cannon fodder.

The point stands either way: he wasn't wrong then. He doesn't think he's wrong now.

His daughter is not a mistake, but Sasuke's not sentimental enough to think she's his redemption—or the clan's—either. Sarada is her own, not tied down by stagnant old pride or the ghosts her relatives left behind.

She is untethered. There's no limit to what she could do with that freedom.

Sasuke closes his eyes.

Some parts of the old pattern are right. They should be kept around—Bolt watching Sarada's back and Sarada returning the favor, even if they're constantly at each other's throats. Challenging one another to be better in every possible way. There are shades of the past there, but the circumstances are so different from what they were when Sasuke was young and grieving and bitter.

The key is to keep them that way. Sasuke's parents weren't around to keep him from going over the edge, and Sakura can't do everything herself.

"Dad?"

He opens his eyes and sees Sarada in the doorway. Hovering, like she's not sure whether she should be here or not.

"You're awake," she says. Sasuke nods, tries to sit up and immediately regrets it.

"You shouldn't do that." Sarada frowns. "Mom'll rip your head off if you bleed through those bandages. Pretty sure she told you not to move, didn't she?"

Sasuke blinks. Sarada, irritated out of her normal reticence where her father is concerned, is glaring at him in a way that is very, very Sakura.

"She did," he admits. Then, "You're not hurt?"

She shakes her head. "No. Those bandits scattered right after—" She stops. Swallows.

"Thanks. For, um. Saving me."

"You don't have to thank me," Sasuke says automatically. "I'm your father."

The words hang over the room like a canopy of exquisite awkwardness.

"Well," Sarada says at last. "I should probably let you sleep or something. I just wanted to make sure…"

She trails off. Sasuke is painfully aware that his first opportunity to test his new resolve is slipping away.

"You could stay," he offers. "If you wanted to."

It's so much harder to say the words than it should be; maybe parenting is like a muscle in that it atrophies if not used regularly. Sarada is looking at him like he's grown a third eye.

"I told Chocho I'd help her make dango," she says. There's a second of hesitation (during which Sasuke contemplates never opening his mouth again) before she adds, "I could bring you some later, if you want."

The sudden lightness of relief is embarrassing. Sasuke finds himself smiling anyway.

"That would be…nice."

Sarada smiles back. It's uncertain, but it's there.

To Sasuke's eyes it looks a lot like a second chance.


End file.
